Alright, pretty good smashing today, helps that I’m developed enough to keep it going a while yet. 5 max and as few as 3 sessions left.
Uf, when I did some smashing yesterday after the epic day prior I appreciated once the periods where I had to go do something else for a while I could just take a few minutes’ break, the sets I used to need a break between I just needed to catch my breath again and the stuff where I once needed a breather I just readjusted my grip on the maul.
I also stopped in part cause I was actually getting sore in the shoulder and now waking up my core is tight in the way that means growth. But so no smashing today, though I might take the maul to split up some stumps.
Alright, got to those stumps, 3 I didn’t destroy but opened up the inside wood to the elements in a way that’ll rot them, 3 I cut last year a/o had a service come for two years ago are still too hard and intact and need another year or more of decay.
And that definitely exhausts my capacity to swing that thing for the day.
Okay, after that I got out the polesaw and took off some minor stuff on the pine that was just suboptimal and kept anything from filling in to fix, and then I was like “uf, that exerts my weary back muscles too much” so I moved on
Then I did a bunch of weeding until I was like “uf, all this bending over exerts my weary waist muscles too much” so I moved on
And then I moved stuff around in the backyard and checked through my firewood and most of it seasoned fine but I separated out the stuff that was getting insubstantial with rot or covered in fungal spores until I was like “man this is all just much” so I moved on
Then I pulled some wood off Strawberry Ridge to smash up to add to Blueberry Hill, clearing it off to walk it down compressed, then rinsed off the wheelbarrow I’d been mixing mud in and poured the muddy water into some dry pine needles I’m encouraging to rot and firm into soil and I was like “c'mon that’s enough” so I came inside and had a milkshake I had delivered
A bit more smashing, but I really need to give the shoulder a few days’ break now. CrossFit wasn’t lying, sledgehammer work is a great workout.
Back on my smashing bullshit, now that I’ve charged up with an overstrength creatine dose (actually, I rearranged my doses so I take all 5 in the morning instead of 3/2 now that I won’t wake up in such a pit at bottom) my limiting factor now isn’t any of the muscles specific to this motion – helper muscles to aim the swing, forearm to hold on and tilt the head up, even waist and thigh to stabilize my base – but the more general and capacious chest muscles raising an 11 pound weight at the end of what between arms and handle is a 7-foot fulcrum
Alright, before a downpour more smashing today; more productive than yesterday because I realized I had gone down a creatine scoop cuz I didn’t need it for regular operations but ideal smashing level is really 2 scoops past that, I was pausing between sets of swings not for muscle fatigue but to regain breath scrabbling for aerobic energy.
So that speeds timelines up; unfortunately I realized one part I thought was pretty settled had really been piled atop slid-down-horizontal now-rotting fenceboards with some voids beneath so that’ll need smashing; call it a wash.
Alright, so some good smashing on Blueberry Hill today – there was a part I only expected to be able to blunt smash tangled branches but you could really bite the sharp head into it and then blunt-smash on the second pass, leaving it a lot more consolidated. Unfortunately, I think this realization and the one that there’s no good stable ground AT ALL to get another bit means there’s at least 5 up to 9 sessions left.
The side yard (thinned those trees out a lot last year)
Strawberry Ridge
The flower patch
Blueberry Hill
Annuals coming in out front
Ok did a bunch more weeding in the lower backyard – gonna eliminate my lowest-ranking grass this year, a big rough creeping beachgrass I only let survive into this year to consolidate a pile of bamboo rhizomes and it’s time for succession to the next species, baby.
There’s a tough clover down there I’ll take out outliers, edge back its one main patch, maybe even get all of it this year but not before it sets seed, so really 3 more years of cleaning it up as the very last untamed wilderness around here.
Smashed up more Blueberry Hill, the 2 sections I thought were just 2 more smashing sessions deep each might be 3, got 1 of 6 done.
Finding I’m better at bending down to the ground now, doesn’t sting the waist so much but I feel it in the inner thighs now, I think I might be lowering myself by bowing my knees out, umpire-style
Used my new tamper (less area on the head, which I first thought inferior but now realizes it stamps down with more force per square inch) to pound some new dirt into where I’m tamping the side yard into a rammed-earth ramp up to the backyard gate
Lugged some stones down to mark off a flower patch fed by two ditches at the base of Strawberry Ridge where the ramp goes up from the woodchip path
Yard Task Update
Task: Days Spent/Days Budgeted
tasks done this update in bold
(Completed tasks in parentheses)
Okay, Blueberry Hill has settled enough it doesn’t really need another flight of stones, so it’s not so much raising as shoring up the retaining wall, the unmortared stones placed two years ago are starting to bulge out, the original mud around them washed away.
So I dug up a bunch of dirt from the back yard where a ramp got filled in with decades of leaves, added water and mixed it with sand and dry dead grass, and applied it in the joints between the stones.
It was iffy getting the viscosity right but I found I could pour light mud fractions out into a pile of pine needles to solidify it and leave me with thicker stuff. Gotta get some more in between stones down the line then I drape a nylon net over it weighed down by the branches I got there, anchor it into the dirt between the stones with pairs of disposable chopsticks, cover the whole thing smooth over in more mud, and then plant Alpine strawberries in it so they send out runners across strands of the net.
And then stones being pushed out of place will be held in by the net that’ll be held in place by the network of runners that’ll be held in place by where they touch down and set new roots.
Well, woke up at 1, went right out and worked til 7:30, apparently I can get right back into the swing of that once spring picks up.
Blueberry Hill has 1 (which is to say two half-)day(s) of smashing left but first I’m doing a ton of post-rain weeding and dumping the soil onto it to create a stable path…
…and then smashing up the new wood I dumped on Strawberry Ridge…
…(which is pretty fine and breakable and I’ve largely done already)…
…to stand on the stable path and dump it on Blueberry Hill where as it settles its lower in the middle than the edges…
…and then gather up the last of the leaves…
…to dump atop that.
Alright, recovered from dragging those branches onto Strawberry Ridge in time to do a good bit of Smashing on Blueberry Hill. I can walk straight across from the fence gate rather than have to go around to get to the far side now!
1.5 days left budgeted which seems about right. Might have to drag some of those branches over to re-bulk Blueberry Hill out after some more smashing, but then a bunch of Strawberry Ridge was originally branches I dragged over when I started smashing last spring, so accounts balance.
Really productive day smashing Blueberry Hill; previous smashing rendered the rubble so fine as to form stable ground to smash the rest without exhausting my balance. I’d say only 2 full sessions remain inclusive of gathering and spreading leaves and loose wood atop the smashed-up mass.
Alright, I did a half-session of smashing on Blueberry Hill, about the maximum practical with the new accelerated fatigue. Yeah, about 2.5 left.
Then came back and opened the window next to my chair for the first time this year.
Okay did some more smashing but my arms were worn out from yesterday, I think Blueberry Hill’s gonna take about 3 fully-rested days more
Okay, Blueberry Hill is now 50% completely smashed, but the other 50% isn’t even well-smashed yet
Okay, some rain last night did in fact paste the debris of Blueberry Hill together with wet leaves, which means I was able to smash up a whole third of the last remaining jumble before my stabilizing muscles were exhausted instead of like, an eighth
Okay, got half the leaves up onto Blueberry Hill, finish tomorrow.
Alright, it rained enough for me to blow up some of the already-ground-to-dirt leaves on a side block, now tomorrow I put them on Strawberry Ridge and get the leaves on the neighbor’s side of the side yard for Blueberry Hill and then I finish the leaf-gathering chapter for the year.